How to delete accounts from the People app on Windows 10

Windows 10 recently added a new app called People which is for managing contacts. It’s not a very capable app. It can connect with various online accounts and import contacts from them. It’s not bad but the interface has limitations or rather it’s not a very well thought out app. If you add a Gmail, or Yahoo, or iCloud account to the People app, you can only delete them if contacts from the accoutns synced correctly in the first place. If there was an error with the account, you cannot remove it. That said, it’s not impossible to remove a problematic account. The process is just ridiculous. Here’s how you can delete accounts from the People app on Windows 10.

Synced Accounts

Assuming you have an account that synced perfectly to the People app, you can remove it from the app itself. Open the People app and go to its Settings. Click the account that you want to delete from the app.

A new window will open with a Delete account from this device option. Click it and the account will be removed from the People app.

Problem Accounts

If you have an account that didn’t sync correctly to the app, clicking it in the Settings app will not open the same window with a delete option. Instead, you will be prompted to enter your password and fix the sync issues. To delete the app, open the default Mail app on Windows 10.

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Click the cog wheel button to open the app’s settings panel. Click the Manage Accounts option and it will list all the accounts that have been connected to the People app, including the one that didn’t sync correctly. Click it, and select ‘Change settings’ from the menu.

This will open a new Account settings page which will have a delete option. Click it and the account will be removed from the Mail and the People app.

The People app isn’t more than a year old and its limitations are painfully obvious. Aside from there being no easy way to delete an account that didn’t sync, you also cannot import contacts individually from VCF files. For a desktop app that is supposed to manage contacts, this is a terrible limitation to have. It almost makes it useless. In fact, if you don’t connect an online account with the People app, you simply cannot use it.

To call the People app a contacts manager isn’t right. It’s more a centralized hub for contacts from various online accounts.